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Latest ArticlesThe War On Terror Is BackMarch 15, 2024 • The National Interest Within the Beltway, February and March tend to be busy months, when high-ranking military commanders and senior intelligence officials descend on Capitol Hill to update lawmakers on the assorted threats facing the United States. This year, however, interspersed with the usual briefings about Russia (reenergized by what it sees as flagging Western support for Ukraine) and China—with its persistent desire to dominate Taiwan—Members of Congress also heard a different and deeply unwelcome message. The conflict once called the "War on Terror" has well and truly returned.
Another Way Congress Can Help UkraineMarch 7, 2024 • The Washington Times Can America continue to support Ukraine? At present, the answer seems far from certain. For weeks, U.S. assistance to Kyiv has been tied up in Congress, a casualty of partisan politics and election-year maneuvering. Backers of continued aid still hope the logjam will be broken in the coming weeks. That, however, might not end up happening. While a fresh supplemental aid package has already passed the Senate, Speaker Mike Johnson has refused to bring it to a floor vote before the House of Representatives. And continued pressure from vocal members of the House Freedom Caucus, as well as opposition from former President (and presumptive Republican nominee) Donald Trump, may stop him from ever doing so. For Ukraine, the present gridlock is potentially disastrous. The coming half-year, Ukrainian officials have made clear, represents a "zone of crisis" – one in which shortfalls in ammunition and other vital materiel could pose a real threat to the viability of Kyiv's continued resistance to Russia's onslaught. As a practical matter, that means Western aid, even if it does eventually materialize, could do so too late should the tide of battle turn decisively in Moscow's favor. However, such a state of affairs isn't necessarily a foregone conclusion because the United States has other ways of assisting Ukraine.
It's Time To Let America's Iran Outreach Be All It Can BeMarch 5, 2024 • Newsweek What's the current state of America's engagement with the Iranian people? When the Trump administration came into office in early 2017, the answer to that question was decidedly negative. The U.S. government's dedicated public diplomacy agency, then known as the Broadcasting Board of Governors (and subsequently as the U.S. Agency for Global Media, or USAGM) was rife with problems, ranging from personnel irregularities to poor security practices. And the Voice of America's (VOA) Farsi service, beset by poor management, low morale, and instances of blatant political favoritism, ranked among the Agency's worst performing channels. That year, I chaired an in-depth study at the American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC), which documented major issues with both the form and substance of U.S. messaging to the Iranian people. Fast forward some seven years, and things appear to have changed for the better.
Moscow Is Waging War On Ukrainian Identity, And Belarus Is HelpingFebruary 18, 2024 • The Hill Russia's war on Ukrainian identity is intensifying. For nearly two years now, the Kremlin has been attempting to dominate its western neighbor through military means. Over time, however, it has become clear that another objective of this campaign is the wholesale erasure of Ukrainian identity and culture. To be sure, this struggle didn't start in February 2022. A tug-of-war over Ukrainian identity (and history) has taken place in some fashion between Kyiv and Moscow since Ukraine's independence in 1991 — and in earnest since Russia's 2014 invasion of Ukraine and its subsequent unilateral annexation of Crimea. Nevertheless, this contest has intensified dramatically since the start of the Kremlin's "special military operation." To wit, Moscow has intentionally targeted Ukrainian schools, according to Ukrainian sources, in order to hit "soft targets" and disrupt education in Ukraine. A spring 2023 report by the Center for Information Resilience documented more than 350 of attacks by Russia on Ukrainian educational institutions, such as schools and universities, and posited that these facilities were not collateral damage but the "main target of specific strikes." Russia is also decimating Ukraine's cultural and linguistic heritage. Russian military strikes have "damaged thousands of cultural heritage sites, including those protected by UNESCO," The Insider, a Russian opposition news portal, reports. In places like Kherson, Russian forces have destroyed Ukrainian language books, while in Donetsk, local Kremlin-approved authorities have stopped offering instruction in the Ukrainian language in schools altogether. Most directly, Russia has begun the large-scale deportation and reeducation of Ukrainian minors from occupied Ukrainian territories. As of mid-2023, the Russian government itself officially estimated that "more than 700,000" Ukrainian children had been forcibly transferred to Russia, a practice that it justified as necessary for their own protection. But the alleged safekeeping of Ukrainian children seems to be the farthest thing from Moscow's mind. Rather, Russia has been internationally condemned for operating multiple "reeducation" camps designed to instill loyalty to Moscow, and hatred of Kyiv, among Ukraine's youngest prisoners of war — something that constitutes a grave breach of the international laws of armed conflict. These efforts follow a certain twisted logic. Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly intoned that Russians and Ukrainians constitute "one people." His efforts are therefore designed to ensure that no alternative identity is available to Ukrainians who believe otherwise.
Joe Biden's Real Iran ProblemFebruary 4, 2024 • The National Interest The United States, Winston Churchill is said to have remarked circa 1944, can be counted on to do the right thing once it has exhausted every other available option. Back then, the British Prime Minister was talking about America's belated entry into the Second World War, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor made inaction impossible. Today, it's a pretty good way to describe the Biden administration's Middle East policy. On February 2nd, after nearly a week of dithering and public signaling, the United States finally launched a series of air strikes against Iranian-backed militias and elements of the country's clerical army, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), in both Syria and Iraq. That, presumably, is just the beginning of what President Biden has signaled would be a protracted response to recent widespread aggression by Iranian-supported militias in the region. The proximate cause of the American offensive is a late January drone strike on a U.S. military outpost in Jordan that left three servicemen dead and scores more injured. But the real purpose of the campaign is more strategic – to reset a U.S. deterrence posture which has eroded catastrophically in recent months. That, however, could turn out to be a difficult proposition. Books by Ilan Berman |
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